Whatever Carol feels might be demonstrated as my wizardry when it comes to flying standby (and maybe that switch from Rome to Venice via our Eurail Pass to nab a couple of first class seats home might qualify), most assuredly went out the window when I stepped into the shower in our Dublin hotel room.

 “Turns out, we weren’t just hours early for our reservation, but a whole day (having evidently lost track of time with eight hours worth of time changes accumulated during the trip). But a very sweet lass at Stay City Apartments fixed our time warp, and now we’d be In Dublin for four days instead of just three.”

  The flight from Orange County to Boston via Minneapolis, was not flawless, but we arrived in good shape, albeit in the middle of the night. Any missteps with seating availability was more than made up for when we once again were able to join the pod people in Delta One for the Ireland flight.

Delta One to Dublin! A great start!

  We landed in Dublin in the wee hours of the morning and ahead of schedule to boot, so we knew an early check-in at the hotel would be out of the question. In fact, customs clearance and an airport bus that dropped us off just a few blocks from our hotel had us walking into the lobby before the breakfast service had barely gotten underway. Turns out, we weren’t just hours early for our reservation, but a whole day (having evidently lost track of time with eight hours worth of time changes accumulated during the trip). But a very sweet lass at Stay City Apartments fixed our time warp, and now we’d be In Dublin for four days instead of just three.

  We made the best use of our unexpected “free time”time boarding a Hop On Hop Off bus that gave us an overview of the city. Carol marked the stops where we’d hop off the following day, and then we both hit the jet lag wall as we staggered back to the hotel. Gloriously, our room was ready, and we gratefully crashed for the rest of the afternoon.

We got lucky after arriving a day early for our booking

  When I awoke, Carol had already showered, and reported plentiful hot water and a rain shower head. I couldn’t wait, and dismissed her additional note that the shower door “might be a little tricky.”

  It was an accordion-style door that had to be pushed into the shower in order to unfold itself and seal off the stall. Looked straightforward enough, I regulated the hot water and climbed in. The rain head was luxurious. I maneuvered the two louvers of the door behind me, but the door wouldn’t close. Worse, it was now stuck in a partially open and closed position that was soaking the bathroom floor with the luxurious flow from the  rain head. And it had now blocked me from getting back out of the shower to investigate the jamb issue. I could see that the door had gotten off track, but I couldn’t reach it from where I was. I had no choice but to summon Carol into my shower. I reached and knocked on the inside of the bathroom door.  She thought someone was knocking on our room door and went to answer it. My mild panic was roiling into a full psychotic episode, wondering what was going to happen if we couldn’t get the door back on track. Carol seeing me naked in the shower was inelegant enough, but somebody from maintenance?

   Fortunately,  Carol’s Yonkers ingenuity once again saved the day, and that of a maintenance person who would have never been able to unsee what he saw. I praised my bride for, once again, rescuing me from a pickle of my own device. She responded by casually observing, “I noticed there was quite a bit of shrinkage going on in that shower.” I protested that I had just stepped in before the door got stuck, and that our room had been quite chilly.

  She returned a smile that I found to be both wistful and wan, as well as lacking in sufficient understanding of the circumstances.

A Guinness to restore manhood

  I needed several Guinnesses that evening to help restore my, um, manly well-being.